DROIDICAL

As I added more and more stuff to my new Droid I began to wonder how secure is this? A kid could figure out how to slide the unlock. Can I secure it with a password? Sort of. I found in the ‘Location and Security’ menu the ability to set your own ‘Unlock Pattern’ which to be honest I thought was a little weird at first.  I still wonder how secure it really is as it seems easy for someone to see me entering it (vs typing something on a small keyboard).  On the plus side, once I got used to it… doesn’t really take any longer than swishing the unlock in than in the ‘no pattern’ scenario.  My initial thought was that I would just set it to be required when traveling but may just keep it on.

The process was just like setting up password, but does feel like your missing something. Thought it might help to see it so here are the steps I went through to set my pattern….

As I said from the home page open the menu and touch the ‘Location and Security’

Select ‘Set Unlock Pattern’ which takes you to an intro page giving the steps coming

‘Next’ will open an intro describing how to create the pattern with four dots

The next screen allows you to record your pattern, letting you retry (reset) if you don’t like it.

Once you feel comfortable with this… touching ‘continue’ takes you to a pattern confirmation page, where you enter it again

After touching ‘Confirm’ it takes you back to the preferences screen with the ‘Require pattern’ set and ‘Use visible pattern’ set.

Now when I ‘locked’ the phone and tried to come back I was prompted to enter my pattern

One tricky thing I found was that if I opened with the slider… had to enter my pattern sideways (in a way), but got used to that pretty quick

Otherwise, you can still disable sound and go into airplane mode etc.

Besides all the awesomeness, I started noticing the little foibles after two weeks deactivating compromise with the Droid. So, while I love it… got be objective and start a good feature enhancement list for Droid II.

Here is my list so far…

• the  phone has to be invoked from within android OS purely
• the four main ‘buttons’ are not physical buttons
• tap accuracy – this could be just me I have big hands, but seems like I have to tap above things
• power button too close to headphones
• would prefer to have usb on the side and not under the keyboard
• camera… waiting for a software update, trying alternatives
• random gold or brass colored accents… like why on camera button but not on volume toggle?
• the short cable that came with it does’t even reach from the wall to my nightstand
• sometimes it gets stuck in horizontal mode, even if I flip and swirl the thing around (probably something I am doing wrong)

What did I miss?

If your like me you have been looking at different accessories for your Droid.  The Dock is a cool idea.  I got to checking out the reviews of the dock and I agree with most people’s comments that it would be really nice if it had either audio out ability or speakers.  Still would like to have a nice alarm clock type functionality like that.

Dock Runner started floating around the interwebs yesterday (at least that’s when I caught it) so I gave it a try. It let’s me put my Droid into ‘dock mode’ giving all the same visual features… minus the plastic stand and easy usb plugin. You get a nice big easy to see clock, date, and weather summary (based on location which you can

override or change). It also gives you quick access to typical ‘by the bedside’ needs like the alarm settings, music, media and my fav the dimmer (light bulb).

I did notice that it is a little different from running other apps because it sets this ‘dock mode’ which bottom line means it is stuck in horizontal view no matter how much I rotated. If you click away to the Music or Media apps you will still be in ‘dock mode.’ Other typcical menu and touch options seem to be disabled, like double clicking the home button (love that one), but search still worked (can’t seem to get away from that thing). The only way to disable it is to click on the app icon again which will shut it off.

So if your willing to plugin the USB for charging and having a book or something to prop up your Droid (yep, times are tough) it pretty much does the same thing as far as I can tell.  It will be interesting to see if the Droid get enough base to entice third parties to build other hard accessories using these same features.

The Facebook app that came already installed on the Droid / Android 2.0 is simple and would seem to have everything you need.  The funny thing is that I find myself using the facebook mobile site available through the browser more.

On the positive side I like the simplicity, always wins with me.  In fact when my wife first saw it she blurted out that she wished Facebook on the web could be like that. There seems to be a tight integration with the camera and Gallery application which works nicely. It shows your update stream, friends, photo, profile, notifications, and let’s you take a photos for immediate upload to your profile.  For viewing friends status updates it works great.  I use groups on the web side so I can filter out my different types of ‘friends’ but this just takes the whole feed of updates together. Updating status is simple.

All my notifications come to my GMail account so now those are popping instantly into my Android GMail app.  When I first started to get them I was flipping back over to the Facebook application to find the comment or message and reply to it.  It wasn’t easy to find… even using the Notifications tab.  I found that clicking on the link itself ending up redirecting me over to Facebook mobile site touch.facebook.com which seemed just as simple and yet have a little better set of features.

One important piece in particular that the stand alone app is sorely missing is my ‘Inbox’ where I can view direct messages friends sent me.  Besides that, going from GMail to facebook mobile site was much more seamless and a better overall experience.

May be I will introduce it to people who are getting tired of the cluttered web browser experience, but then they might miss their Mafia Wars.

BoyGeniusReport.com is going to be giving away five Droids.  The article doesn’t say yet how but if your not up for your new every two or didn’t want to slap down the cash here is your chance.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/11/16/motorola-droid-giveaway/

Apps installed and kept this week

+ Animal Sounds – What can I say…my two year old loves it.
+ DailyDilbert – no explanation needed
+ Google Sky Map: so cool, waiting for a really clear night
+ Hellotxt: easy way to update multiple social networks at once
+ Hudo: puzzle type game
+ Pandora: Works as expected with existing presets and lets you create new stations.
+ Places Directory: finds cool stuff near you, view by categories
+ RingDroid: lets you take any audio file, cut out the part you want to use as a ringtone
+ Robo Defense FREE: hooked already I think
+ WP2Go: let’s you update your WordPress Blog posts

Aps installed and then removed this week

- Hi AIM Beta: didn’t seem to look correct on the Droid and Meebo beats it out on overall functionality I think
- Dizzler: music search and play from internet which works fine but need to at least stream a whole album
- Imeem: didn’t pick up my favorited playlists

What were my first impressions of the Droid after using it a week? Overall: still love it. Flaws? Of course there are. First week is still fairly honeymoonish. Playing with the new toy, liking the hardware learning the software, etc.

Connected to the Mainframe

It came to life after it first slurped in my Google account. It started talking. Since I was already using gmail for pretty much everything (but work) it brought the Droid to life. The gmail application is simple and works great. The other epiphany came when I started to check and make sure numbers from my old cell were in there. All my Google and Facebook contacts all sync’d from the get go. Looking for a friend’s number was bit overwhelming if you have a lot of emails and FB connections many of which you don’t really call regularly but thankfully there is a little feature to filter out contacts that don’t have numbers which helps. The amazing thing to me was how little I did to get this all setup.

Additionally I added the free Meebo app for instant messaging and hellotxt app for updating status across my social networks. Meebo is the cleanest of the free IM apps I tried out. Besides the clean UI I really liked that it seldom completely disconnected me if I started on wifi and then stepped out of range it would seamlessly switch to 3G. I found hellotxt app to be fine so far. I usually update through IM anyway so this is a nice step up.

It Knows Where It Is

As many reviewers have pointed out Android 2.0 is very much location aware. You see it below your google search box in the browser (with consent of course). GPS was not one of the things I just had to have, but it’s pretty darn cool to have it none the less. Maps is cool but the directions functionality available in the … ‘Car Home’ application (not sure if it’s just another part of Maps or a separate application). Just tell it where you are trying to go it searches for closest match lets you select and get voice turn by turn directions from where you are. I only played with it but thinking it’s gonna come in handy on our Thanksgiving trip.

Play Something For Me

Based the reviews out there I was assuming this would suck. There is no simple iTunes-like sync to/from your desktop (like contacts sync). This was the first ‘flaw’ or ‘not so user-friendly’ encounter I had. No clear obvious explanation of how to transfer songs to the card. When it was plugged in it showed connected by USB but it was only charging. I could not see the SD card mounted on the desktop. Opened the ‘Getting Started’ pamphlet (that you usually never read right?) and found in the last page ‘Other Tips & Tricks’ the very last tip #5… “Transfer files to/from your PC:” which tells you how to do it. If you click on the notification that the USB is connected … it will give you the option to mount your SD card. Once I got that I was able to figure out the rest. I would say this ‘works’ but isn’t really clean would expect that to work a little better. After I got some music on there I didn’t have any issues using the built in Music app or playing the songs uploaded (as some reviewers did). I found the interface to be nice and clean, easy to use… and sound quality is great. I also downloaded several apps for streaming the best of which so far is Pandora. I am hoping for Imeem’s to improve and let me play for my favorited playlists from Imeem.com (and not just songs).

Beyond Music I setup the YouTube app so I can plug in to my subscriptions and playlists. Nice. Search inside YouTube works pretty well. I also started browsing the Market Place for games that would interest me. HDOS and Robo Defense are definitely keepers for me personally.

Phone Home

For me the phone works great. Better signal and sound quality than my last one… just phone for phone. Contacts mentioned above works great for me. When I first started using it up to my face I assumed it did the screen lock which is good, but was surprised when it did the unlock as I brought my hand down (way cool). I was expecting I would have to unlock the screen to get to the interface so the first few times I was bumbling with it but then made sense and I just rolled with it. My only complaint about the use ‘as a phone’ is funny to mention, but I did notice it so I will say it. It’s been mentioned that the Droid is solid, made of quality indgredients… metal, glass, etc. which you can feel. If hadn’t been using my Droid for a while, like it was next to my desk, and I got a call… when I put it to my face it was (uncomfortably) cold. This could be just cause I am in the Pacific Northwest and the temps are cooler but I bet I am not the only person who notices that.

Not Recycling Yet

I am still within my 30 day return policy window but at this point I am still keeping it. As time goes on it will be interesting to see how things grow positively and negatively.  I suspect as time goes on it will be the Android OS that either wins or loses my loyalty and not so much the Droid device.

This is one of the questions I faced when considering the Droid purchase. See my first post on why I bought the Droid. Besides the iPhone allure, the issue around keyboards and which wireless carrier to go with. There was also the possibilities of other Android based phones to consider.

Verizon currently only has two Android based phones the HTC Droid Eris and Motorola Droid. Cellfanatic.com has a good detailed comparison of these two.  For me the decision to get the Motorola goes back to the keyboard thing.  The HTC was tempting.  It feels nice in the hand (more like a phone, less like a device). It also has HTC’s pinch zoom (iPhone-ish) functionality.  The other thing about Eris for me that was a hard sell is that it’s only $100 less than the Motorola but spec for spec it seems you get so much more from the later. I expect Verizon will have one or two more Android based phones in 2010… and possibly the famed iPhone.

If you are not tied to a certain network like I am then options abound. I know that Garmin-Asus, Dell, Sony, Kyocera are all planning 2010 new Android based phones on various networks.

Why would I a mac loving techie buy a Droid?  Two simple answers… I live rural and I like physical keyboards.  Well, it was a lot more painful than that.

Apple has some powerful mojo though.  I was almost ready to move over to ATT, even though the coverage is horrible at my house, just to possess the beautiful iPhone.  I had been able to ignore the fact that on screen typing wasn’t working for me (big hands? old fashioned?).   Then the buzz around the possibility of VZ carrying an Android based phone caught my eye.  Early guesses and word of mouth stories indicated that had a keyboard and iPhone like specs == promising.  The iDon’t ads and preview reviews came out, cool but… too hyped perhaps?  Truth is iDon’t need an iPhone killer, just need a solid device that does what I need.  Most early hands on demos were positive but always reserving something for the master the house (iPhone). Starting to think I will just live with a VZ phone and a iPod Touch.

By the time I finally went to my appointment with Best Buy I was pretty sure I was not going to get this lame flush keyboard, camera lagging, app store lacking, so not an iPhone killer wanna be device. There are good iPhone vs Droid comparisons and reviews but I think I was over saturated. Had it just go in to try the thing out. It was my first time using Best Buy for mobile phone stuff and liked working with them. They were low pressure, let me play with it for a long time (mid day no one in there), let me compare with iPhone and the other droid Eris. They also process the rebates without me having to mail anything in.  Once I got the Droid in hand and had a chance to play with it, type on the keyboard, carry it in my pocket, compare with iPhone in the hand, Eris in the hand. I decided it would work for me.

So here are the basic reasons for plopping down the cash…

• must have VZ network being rural it just works better out where I am
• needed to upgrade soon, was eligible for my new every two
• flexible platform
• real keyboard
• geek now factor

What changed from when I was walking into the store to making the actual purchase.  There are a lot of reviews… probably more now. They all seemed to focus on two things… 1. comparing with iPhone 2. comparing with other android based phones. When I started messing with it I realized that I didn’t have that frame of reference so I wasn’t wishing it would do something like the iphone or that like the HTC or whatever.  Actually holding the device and trying it out is what sold me.  The interface was really clean and understandable to me.  Yes, the device seemed a little heavier than the iphone or htc Eris… but it’s more like a metallic vs plastic heavy, not a I can’t carry this in my pocket heavy. The screen is bright (not as big a sell point as the reviewers made out for me personally).  The keyboard worked fine for me.  It seem to do everything I would have thought and more. It seemed like a very useful tool full of potential…. perhaps that’s what woke the geek in me.

Unboxing the Droid